Feature Requests

If a create project_v1.aep on a computer, saving my files to something like OneDrive, then continue the project on another computer, saving project_v2.aep there. Then once again I continue with another computer (the first one, perhaps), now File / Open Recent (and Windows Start Menu) only detects v1 even v2 exists! So in a hurry, I will miss the discrepancy. For various reasons, I may not realize the mistake, continuing to edit the file extensively. Then I see my mistake and now I have a mess – two project files and I don't remember what I updated on which file. So, After Effects should simply ask this when opening "The most recent file is project_v2.aep, would you like to open this instead"? Or, it could indicate this while already loading and after the file has loaded. Then main thing is that the user doesn't start editing the old version unknowingly.This applies to all Adobe programs (and could well be even a operating system level feature, but better start somewhere).

It would be great to have the following improvements to Composition > Save Frame as > Photoshop Layers: Option to include Layers that are outside of the visible area of the Compositon to be included in the resulting Photoshop document.  This would avoid having to increase the Composition width and height  prior to saving as Photoshop Layers. Option for Text Layers to be editable in Photoshop.  Currently, After Effects Text Layers are rasterized as a Photoshop Layer.  An option for editable text would avoid having to copy and paste from After Effects to Photoshop to restore being able to edit text on the Photoshop side. Option to place the Composition Poster Time as a Smart Object in Photoshop.  This would allow for maintaining the appearance achieved within After Effects on the Photoshop side while being able to make adjustments during the design process and rastorized later if/when needed.

Add the following options to the Import Dialog Box that are active when any option that results in a Composition is chosen: Frame Rate Start Time Code Duration Backgound Color   This would be helpful any time that users need these settings to be something other than those of the most recent Composition Settigns.    

Update After Effects Layer Styles to better match their Photoshop counterparts with greater functionality as follows: Stack instances of Stroke, Inner Shadow, Color Overlay, Graident Overlay, and Drop Shadow Support for Pattern Overlay Support for Blend If options beyond On/Off Option for reloading current settings from the Photoshop source Copy/Paste Layer Styles to and from Photoshop and After Effectcs   This would be helpful any time client approved Photoshop artwork is imported into After Effects and the motion design involves the Layer Styles.

 Layer styles has never been fully integrated in after effects.If Layer styles was moved into Effects, you could use it with the other effects in the order you want. There are no "after effects logic" in the way Layer styles is integraded right now. Best regards,Jakob Eriksen

Quick Search field in the timeline is really big. It would be great to accomodate to add buttons for creating nulls and adjustment layers. Both commands have long shortcuts and it would be great to have them on the timeline.

Per @Tim Kurkoski 's suggestion ( https://twitter.com/tkurkoski/status/1574877636031311872 ) I'd like to request the ability to batch modify keyframes through the ExtendScript API, specifically for labels and values. ( Basing off of the existing format for prop.setValuesAtTimes() ) // current prop.setLabelAtKey(index, color); prop.setValueAtKey(index, value); // proposed prop.setLabelsAtKeys([indexA, indexB, indexC], [colorA, colorB, colorC]]); prop.setValuesAtKeys([indexA, indexB, indexC], [valueA, valueB, valueC]]);

I spend too much time searching for which timeline elements are associated with corresponding movement in the viewport. Shifting layers, in/out points, and keyframes in time often takes multiple selection passes. And there's no way to store that selection, so they each have to be selected every time they need to be adjusted (and in/out points can't even be selected so they all need to be done separately... every time!).Selectable in/out points and labels/groups for ALL timeline elements--any combination of keyframes, markers, in/out points, and layers--would strengthen the visual connection between the timeline and the viewport AND allow for faster timeline adjustment of those grouped movements.

I'd love to see the legacy UI styles coming back to AE as a feature to that you can change the way you want. I love the look of After Effects CC 2015 for some reason, and having that same UI usable in the latest versions would be super cool. Or just allow us to download older versions. I understand it would come with support issues and the fact that they are buggy, but I still wish to use them sometimes even if I can't get support for them.

I'd love to finally be able to select a stack of renders in the render queue, and change them all from one render setting to another, without having to create a preset, then re-adding them to the render queue.

How about a new type of Repeater for shape groups that looks pretty much the same as the existing one, except that values in it's Transform properties are not applied cumulatively, but rather have their expressions evaluated individually for every copy of the shape?So if I add a random expression to the repeater's Position property, I get a bunch of randomly positioned copies. Ideally we'd get expression access to something like repeaterIndex (like textIndex in text layer expression selectors) but even without any new syntax it would be amazing. I can already imagine making a growing vine which automatically sprouts leaves as it gets longer.Might save someone jumping over to Cavalry, and could provide some new possibilities to MGRTs too.

Revolutionary idea: Migrate all my scripts and presets to the updated version. It should not break every major update. All content gets left behind when the previous version is deleted, so why not migrate the scripts that I have installed automatically? It does so for all settings, but I keep having to reinstall my scripts and custom UI panels. Other way would be to have a folder somewhere that contains user scripts? Like in Documents/Adobe where there is already a folder?

The ability to have layers dynamically connect and interact with each other in the layers panel would tremendously increase productivity and save artists clicks. Specifically, the ability to lock layers in time with each other, parent layer in and out points. This would work really well in situations where you need to split a layer to get one part of it on top of the stack, but when you need to adjust it's in/out points afterward, you don't need to do it for each split that you've created.A video example can be found here: https://vimeo.com/136890745

It would be great to have pixel bit depth editable on a per comp basis rather than a global project-wide preference. This would be similar to the preference to appoint different 3D renderers and color spaces to comps.

Color picker needs to be linkable by expressions and dynamically expanding an amount of color peakers created on the color wheel

Import Layer style, Adjustment layer, Appearance, text editing features from Photoshop and Illustrator when .psd and .ai files are imported to After Effects イラストレーターやフォトショップからpsdやaiファイルを読み込む際に調整レイヤーやレイヤースタイルなどの情報をそのまま反映させるようにしてほしい：例Ps・調整レイヤー・レイヤースタイルAi・アピアランスなど

Steal a page from the 'Set Matte' playbook and create a 'Set Adjustment Layer' effect. This would allow an adjustment layer to live anywhere in the comp and frees the layers you want to affect from being required to live underneath the adjustment layer itself.A 'Set Adjustment Layer' effect would allow for an entire effect stack that lives on an adjustment layer to be easily instanced out to whichever layer(s) you want. It would make for a smoother workflow instead of having to copy the desired effect with relative links and pasting to individual layers since you would now be able to add/remove/mute effects all in one place. If you're familiar with audio mixing, 'Set Adjustment Layer' would essentially be the equivalent to adding an aux send to a layer. Taking that analogy further, extra bonus points for being able to mix/blend the set adjustment layer with the original layer. Lastly, the 'Set Adjustment Layer' effect should also have a button to 'Make Unique', effectively copying the

With the advent of Master Properties and Data-based footage, a refreshed Flowchart View would be a welcome update to help us manage the piping, parenting and referencing that is now possible with the bi-directional push and pull flows of information between Comps and Precomps.This is NOT a request for node-based compositing, but rather a node-based viewpoint that can allow us to organize and unravel comps that can quickly become much more complicated.

Allow the user to hide the panel headers. Instead of the first unnecessary line of text, squeeze it into a small square on the side or corner of panel. Need for scripts panels. Now a lot of space on the monitor is spent on the headers of the panels. This is a completely unnecessary information that can be deleted. The user must decide for himself.

Modern desktops & laptops often got more than one GPU. Currently there's no way to utilize more than one of them.

Animate and Photoshop are great tools for cel animation but both lack the usability for modern motion design workflows that After Effects would provide. Adding support for photoshop-style raster animation in After Effects would bring this powerful technique into the right environment, and add features useful for unrelated workflows.To solve this, I propose the addition of a new Frame Paint Effect, which would would enable a fast, non-parametric way to paint into an effect. It would work like this:Photoshop brush engine- Painting pixels not strokes.- Focus on speed, quality and tablet pressure/tilt support, NOT editability.- Ideally you'd be able to paint into both the layer viewer and the comp viewer if you want, so you animate in context of other layers.Onion Skin!- This should be done on the effect level like 3D Camera Tracker points, so it's there when you need it (when you have the effect selected) but doesn't get rendered.- Options for duration, opacity, and incoming/outgoing colo

Allow workspaces to be easily imported/exported/synced without the need to manually copy/paste workspace.xml files from the preferences folder every time a new machine or install is used.

Cinema4D's Attribute Panel allows a user to select multiple layers, and modify various attributes that those layers share, at once. After Effects could certainly benefit from this. Could be extended to shape layer properties, etc.

Text should have underline option

When scripting, we sometimes have to be able to "store" a property to do something later with it ;For example, very often, scripts use the "comment" property of the layers to store data like this.The problem is: there are only three ways to get a property:- the matchName, but there can be a lot of properties with the same matchName- the name, but it can be changed by users, so it is not reliable- the index, which can be changed by users too.This is very problematic, especially for Effects, or Shapes content, and the new master properties, which can be renamed AND reordered, so there is no reliable way to store a property in scripts.Adding a unique identifier would solve this issue. It could work the same way the .id attribute work with items (comp, footage, folder).